What’s Hot in Training and Human Resources

Fresh from the CIPD’s annual HRD learning and organisational development conference with a bagful of brochures and a pocket-ful of business cards here’s by list of what’s hot and what’s not in the world of training, learning and development and human resources. It’s pretty subjective so don’t take it too seriously:

HotEmployee engagement – still a big theme. A lot of organisations are realising they are full of human beings – shock horror.

Hot – OD –another big  theme, though no-one could tell me what exactly it is without saying “pretty much everything”

Hot – Blended learning – the two worlds of e and face-to-face learning are coming together. Mobile learning and video were also strongly represented.

Not – Long  words and corporate jargon –the training companies employing this just looked so dull.

Hot- Bite sized learning – for better and for worse

Hot – Embodied Management Training! My company is not alone, the fabulous looking Companies in Motion were present showing their work with physical intelligence. The seminar on body languageand lying was also packed. If you want to learn about this aspect of training come to this.

Not –  NLP.  Just seems a bit tired, sorry

Hot – Intuition– being taken seriously at last – Eugene Sadler Smith was present

Not – Coaching– Again something stale has set in with coaching, a shame as I love great coaching, maybe the ratio of average coaches to good ones has just got to high?

Hot – Social media. Finally L & D gets with the times, though there were plenty there who thought banning all SM at work was a good idea. I attended the HRD’s first “tweet up”  – one of the highlights for me actually

Not – Sweeping judgements about younger people and BS about “generation Y” – reverse agesism at work as ever in the sector. The quote “”young people have no idea how to manage” – from the Unlimited Potential speaker was a low point for me…naturally I immediately tweeted it to complete the cliche

Hot – Free fruit, oven glove business cards and smoothies – way better than sweets and pens!

Anything else? Please feel free to add your own in the comments.